Memory impairment in psychology: causes and treatment. Memory Features

Memory is a set of information in psychology that displays events, emotions, any knowledge that the individual has experienced before.

What is memory and its violation

Thanks to her, we have experience, and the person is the person that the people around him know. The loss of memory or its violation causes a great discomfort to the person.

Memory impairment in psychology is enougha common disorder that causes a lot of problems to a person and, of course, worsens the quality of his life. Such a disorder underlies many mental illnesses.

The main types of memory disorders

There are two main types of violation of human memory.

Qualitative dysfunctions involve confusion inthe patient's head, connected with the inability to distinguish genuine memories from fantasies. The patient does not understand what events are real, and which are the fruit of his imagination.

Quantitative defects are displayed in the amplification or weakening of traces of memory.

There are a huge number of varietiesmemory impairments. Most of them are characterized by short-term and reversible. They can be caused by such commonplace reasons as overwork, frequent stressful situations, abuse of medicines, and alcoholic beverages.

Others require a serious approach to treatment.

Causes of memory problems

What are these reasons that can cause memory impairment? In psychology, there are several such.

For example, the presence of an asthenic personsyndrome, which is accompanied by rapid fatigue, exhaustion of the body. It can be a consequence of traumatic brain injury, long-term depression, vitamin deficiency, drug and alcohol addiction.

In children, memory disorders are most oftenconsequence of brain underdevelopment, head trauma of a physical or mental nature. These children have problems with remembering information and its subsequent reproduction.

Features of memory in children are such that violationsmanifested mainly in the form of amnesia. Amnesia - the loss of individual memories. In children, it occurs as a consequence of the unfavorable situation in the family or in the children's institutions that they visit. Also to the causes of amnesia can be attributed frequent acute respiratory disease and hypovitaminosis.

In addition, children's memory featuresmanifested in the fact that since birth, it is constantly evolving, resulting in becoming vulnerable. Distressed pregnancy and childbirth, as well as improper stimulation of the development of memory processes can lead to memory damage.

Diseases associated with blood supply to the brain, for example, diabetes mellitus, arteriosclerosis of vessels, Parkinson's disease affect memory.

Aging. If this physiological process does not involve serious illnesses, the memory deterioration is slow. At first, it becomes difficult for a person to recall long-standing events from life, and newer events and experiences are gradually eroding. The above diseases, as well as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and neurosis, significantly increase memory impairment.

In psychology there is a term like "repression." It means denial or special forgetting by a person especially difficult for him moments of life. This is a protective mechanism of the psyche.

Iodine deficiency and thyroid dysfunctionglands increase the propensity to depression and apathy, which in turn is fraught with a violation of the memorization processes. Therefore, it is so important to properly make a diet in order to fully receive all the necessary vitamins and trace elements.

Memory as a psychological phenomenon

Memory is in psychology a function thatperforms recording, storage and playback of various events and experiences, and also gives the ability to constantly replenish data and use existing experience.

As you know, depending on the functional load, there are several types of memory.

Types of memory

Image memory is that it allows you to capture various images in memory. The motor does the same, but in relation to the movement. Emotional memory concentrates on the emotions experienced.

Symbolic is peculiar, but thanks towe can remember words, thoughts, ideas. Short and long-term memory is known to everyone. The first facilitates the memorization of a large amount of information for a short period of time, after which it is eliminated or moves to a long-term section.

Arbitrary and involuntary memory. The first is triggered by a preliminary indication of memorization, and the second does it arbitrarily, without any commands.

For each of these species there is a memory impairment. In psychology, the Korsakov syndrome, for example, is a short-term memory disorder.

Types of memory disorders

What are the symptoms of memory impairment? This is a forgetting and impossibility of reproducing events from personal or other experience.

Paramnesia is a loss of time, when an individualconfuses the events of the past and the present, can not understand what events in his head took place to be in the real world, and what are fictional, projected by the brain on the basis of information received once.

Dysmnesia is a disorder to whichhypermesia, hypnosis and amnesia. The latter is characterized by the forgetting of individual information and skills for a certain period of time. Problems with memory are episodic, after which memories are partially or completely returned. Amnesia can also affect acquired skills, for example, the ability to drive a car, ride a bicycle, cook any dishes.

Types of amnesia

Retrograde amnesia is manifested in forgettingevents for a certain period of time, preceding the occurrence of trauma. For example, a person injured by a head can forget everything that happened to him in a week or more before the accident.

Anterograde amnesia is the opposite of the previous one and implies a loss of memory for the gap after getting injured.

Fixation amnesia is when the patientis unable to remember the incoming information. He quite adequately perceives the reality, but forgets the information within a few minutes or seconds after receiving it. This causes problems in the temporary orientation, as well as in memorizing the surrounding people.

With total amnesia, a person is not ableremember nothing of your past life. He does not know his name, age, address, who he is and what he did. As a rule, such a breakdown of the mental function of remembering comes after receiving a severe trauma to the skull.

Palimpsest occurs as a result of alcoholic intoxication, when an individual can not recall individual moments.

With hysterical amnesia, the person forgetsheavy, painful or simply unprofitable memories for themselves. It is peculiar not only to mentally ill people, but also healthy, relating to a hysterical type.

Parameteria is a type of memory corruption in which the resulting spaces are filled with different data.

Ekmnesia and cryptomnesia

Ekmnesia is a phenomenon when a person liveslong past events as a phenomenon of the present time. It is typical of older people who begin to perceive themselves as a young person and are preparing for entering a university, a wedding or other events that were experienced at a young age.

Cryptomemia is a disorder in which a persongives out heard or read ideas for their own, sincerely believing in their authorship. For example, patients read books of great writers in their imagination can appropriate themselves, assuring others of this.

A type of cryptomnesia may be a phenomenon when a person perceives an event from his own life as read in a book or seen in a movie.

Treating memory impairments

Classification of memory disorders is a rather large amount of information in psychology, there are many works on the study of such phenomena, as well as the methods of their treatment.

Of course, it is easier to engage in preventive actions than the treatment itself. For these purposes, specialists have developed a lot of exercises, allowing you to keep your memory in good shape.

Proper nutrition and lifestyle also contribute to the normal functioning of the brain.

As for the direct treatment of violationsmemory, it will depend on the diagnosis, the degree of neglect and the causes of the onset. Treatment with drugs begins only after a thorough diagnosis by a specialist doctor.